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RIMINI, Italy – The EMECA General Assembly, which recently met in Milan, elected the new members of its Board of Directors, appointing Carlo Costa, who holds the top role of chief corporate officer at Italian Exhibition Group, as vice-president. At IEG, Costa is entrusted with managing the Operation, Finance, HR, IT, Legal & Compliance departments and the corporate activities of the Group´s subsidiaries.
IEG, listed on the main market on Euronext Milan, with its 60 trade shows and 150 events, over 700 employees in Italy and around the world and offices in Rimini, Vicenza, Milan, Arezzo, Dubai, São Paulo, New York, Singapore, China, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, is one of the world´s main trade show organizers.
EMECA, based in Brussels and chaired by Elżbieta Roeske, has acted as the European Major Exhibition Centres Association since 1992. It unites Europe´s 25 most important exhibition venues, including Italian Exhibition Group´s Rimini and Vicenza Expo Centres.
EMECA members collectively organize 2,000 trade shows per year with 400,000 exhibitors and 38.5 million visitors on an exhibition area of 38 million square metres. Europe currently hosts most of the leading international trade shows and accounts for almost half of the global market share.
EMECA´s role includes promoting its members at a European and global level in the context of industrial alliances with the main government institutions.
Carlo Costa, born in 1968, is originally from Turin but has lived in Fano for 26 years where he is an extremely active voluntary worker. Married to Mariarosa, he has two children, Giovanni and Giacomo. He graduated in Economics and Commerce at Turin University and began his career in Financial Management at Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.
While working at the coffee giant, he also participated in the study, establishment and management of a treasury company agency in the customs area of Dublin. He then moved to the IFAS Group in Turin, which was then one of the automotive sector´s most important dealers controlled by a Milanese investment fund.
In 2001 he joined the then Ente Autonomo Fiera di Rimini, accompanying it during its transformation into a joint-stock company and in all its major operations: M&A in Italy and abroad, integration with Fiera di Vicenza – which gave rise to Italian Exhibition Group S.p.A. -, and the stock exchange listing. In 2022, he moved to the Grana Padano Protection Consortium, the most consumed PDO product in the world. In 2024 he rejoined the Italian Exhibition Group with the top role of CCO.
At EMECA´s last general assembly, the members, coming from all over Europe, focused on exhibition scenario planning, on the sales growth recorded in 2025 and prospective growth for 2026.
Further main issues at the Assembly reflected on the challenges that have arisen from the uncertain geopolitical context, on investments in decarbonisation, exhibition venue renovation, and new multifunctional spaces. Digitalisation, personalized services, security and cybersecurity were also spotlighted.
